Sail-World New Zealand: February 24, 2013

Welcome to
Sail-World.com's New Zealand newsletter for February 24,
2013

The JJ Giltinan Trophy for 18ft
skiffs has finished in Sydney Harbour, with two
sensational days - the first when sailing was cancelled in
Race 6, because of conditions that were considered over the
top for sailing - an average of 27kts with gusts being
recorded at 40kts.

Sure you can race 18fters in such
conditions - but we bow to the judgement of officials on the
water, who despite what the sailing rules say, do take the
legal liability if there is a serious incident. Even if
there is just an official investigation, the time, effort
and worry involved, just isn't worth it. The sailors can
walk away, the officials can't.

Today, the final Race 7
was sailed, in conditions that were still boisterous, but
less so than on Saturday.

Eight boats elected not to
race.

Gotta Love It 7 sailed a very controlled race,
keeping the pressure on her rivals, winning the race from
C-Tech of New Zealand, and took her fifth JJ Giltinan Trophy
win.

We have coverage of Race 7 and the cancellation of
Race 6.

On Auckland's Waitemata Harbour, the
Harken International Youth series has been
underway since Thursday.

In this edition of
Sail-World.com's newsletter we carry reports of the final
three days, plus videos of each day's racing. The event was
won by a crew from RNZYS. Great to see a womens crew reach
the top four in the regatta. They were one of several womens
crews competing in the regatta which attracted a fleet of 14
crews from four countries.

Over the same period Royal Port
Nicholson Yacht Club has being running the 2013 Port
Nicholson Regatta, one of a number of events being
staged in Wellington in February.

Top honours and
centrepiece of the regatta, have gone to the two 52fters
competing in the regatta - Kia Kaha and Georgia, with the
latter top scoring.

We have reports and images from each
day of the regatta.

Team Australia,
sailing an ORMA 60 trimaran, (sdimilar to
TeamVodafoneSailing) has just posted a Sydney to Hobart time
of less than 30 hours, that is some 12 hours faster than the
previous record held by the 100ft supermaxi Wild Oats XI. We
have reports on this new record in this edition.

Following
on the announcement of the Sail-World toolbar (loaded this
into your web browser yet?) Sail-World has now have
stretched past our 200,000 unique viewers per month
readership of English-speaking sailors to readers of the 15
top languages in the world. In a arrangement exclusive to
Sail-World readers, Google's translation
tool has been modified to incorporate sailing
terminology, meaning Sail-World we can now reach more than
90% of the world's sailors with our news - which is
translated by Google into their preferred language.

While
these translations work generally in Google, the engine does
trip over sailing terminology, which is now enhanced for
Sail-World readers. For advertisers this means that if your
stories are published in Sail-World, they will be read by a
much wider audience, particularly in Europe, in their own
language. The enhancement is expected to increase our
non-English speaking audience, as they can now access all
the latest sailing new from the world's largest sailing news
network.Good sailing!

Frontier Touring has today announced that the Foo Fighters will play a last minute intimate and exclusive benefit show at the Auckland Town Hall this Friday February 20 with all profits going to The New Zealand Music Foundation. More>>

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Six short-listed designs for the Canterbury Earthquake Memorial have been released for public input... The Memorial will honour the victims of Canterbury’s earthquakes and acknowledge the suffering of all those who lived through them as well as the heroism of those who participated in the rescue and recovery operations. More>>

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Social justice advocate Celia Lashlie leaves a legacy that will continue to have a positive impact on the lives of New Zealanders for years to come, Labour Leader Andrew Little says. “Celia was a powerful voice for reason, sense and compassion. Her work, particularly with teenage boys, was ground-breaking." More>>